Home Rule League
The Home Rule League (sometimes also called Home Rule Party , Irish Léig an Rialtais Dúchais ) was a political party in Ireland from 1873 to 1882 , which aimed at the so-called Home Rule for Ireland. The Home Rule League was reorganized and renamed the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) in the 1880s . The IPP is considered to be the first professionally organized party in British political history.
origin
The Home Rule League came from the Home Government Association , an advocacy group founded in 1870 by Isaac Butt , a Dublin lawyer . In 1871 the loosely run organization was restructured as a political party and renamed the Home Rule League . In the 1874 election, the party won 60 seats in the House of Commons . Although the HRL appeared as a party, at that time, strictly speaking, it was only an association of independent politicians. This ultimately led to the internal split in the party between the moderate (mostly members of parliament with an aristocratic or church background) and the more radical forces around the Belfast parliamentarians Joseph Biggar and Charles Stewart Parnell .
renaming
After Butt's death in 1879, William Shaw became the party's new leader. Shaw was replaced a year later by the newly elected Parnell. In the election in the same year, the party was able to win three more seats. In 1882 the step was taken to reorganize from a rather loose alliance of politicians to a united, strictly led political party. In this context, Parnell called the party Irish Parliamentary Party .
Party leader
- Isaac Butt 1873-1879
- William Shaw 1879-1880
- Charles Stewart Parnell 1880-1882
